Radio Girls (41 page)

“Ah, Miss Musgrave.” Reith waved her in with his warmest scowl. “Yes, do join me. Most delightful. Still not smoking? Glad to hear it. Quite a bit of water under the bridge since you first joined us, hey?”

“Quite a bit, yes, sir. Coming to the BBC was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“And very good for us, too,” he assured her, with a generous nod. “It does seem as if you've done well.”

“I think so, sir. Thank you. It was very good of you, sir, to let me work solely in the Talks Department. Wanting to do good work there was the best way I could thank you.” She hesitated, wondering if that was enough to warm him. “I do think Talks has done well. People seem to be pleased.”

“Yes, that's my understanding overall,” he agreed. She wondered how many of the Talks he ever listened to. Or liked.

“Sir, I know you're keen on expedience, and I'm wondering, perhaps, if it's not too late to rethink the plans regarding Mr. Siepmann? That is, he's excellent, of course, and done such fine work, but if Talks are doing well as they are, and Schools, too, maybe that's a boat that shouldn't be rocked?”

“Ah. Yes, I understand.” Reith nodded. He leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. “The trouble with success, Miss Musgrave, is it creates its own problems. Miss Matheson has said she needs more staff, the best available. Now she has it and someone to help her with the duller parts of managing as well.”

“But Mr. Fielden does very well as her deputy, helping with managing, and all the rest of us work very hard to keep things running so smoothly,” Maisie said.

“Of course you do, and it's very much to your credit. But I suspect Miss Matheson's great ambition is causing all of you to wear yourselves out in her service. Under this new scheme, all your energies will be better allocated, and Miss Matheson will be better able to hone her considerable talents and produce fare that is more suitable
to the times in which we're now living. You see, Miss Musgrave, the world economy is now in a frightful state. People need comfort, and we must provide that.”

“But don't they need good, well-rounded information, too?”

Deep disappointment crinkled Reith's face.

“I would advise you against assuming too many of Miss Matheson's qualities, my dear. You must understand I have to please people. The governors, you know, they're always trying to keep us up to the mark. They worry, Miss Musgrave, and they charge me to keep them assured, and that's a very heavy charge.”

His eyes were wistful, and she could see he meant every word. She wondered, though, what might happen if he allowed the BBC's popularity to assure the governors instead.

“Besides which, Mr. Siepmann will bring a great deal to the department and allow Miss Matheson and you girls on her team to focus on the sort of Talks you like best. I know this sort of change is difficult to understand, dear, but trust me. You always said you did, you know.”

She looked into his piercing dark eyes. He was testing her, testing the memory of her gratitude.

“Of course I trust you, sir.”

And she did. There was something to be said for knowing exactly who he was and how he operated. What the rest of them needed to better master was how to work within that operation to achieve their ends. But it was an unending game, wherein they kept drawing near and he moved the goalposts.

“I rejoice to hear it, Miss Musgrave. Thank you.”

And thus was Maisie defeated.

“So that's that, then.” Phyllida sighed, frowning around at the crowded Tup. “I suppose it was to be expected.”

“It shouldn't have been, though.”

“All parties come to an end.”

“This is work.”

“It certainly will be. But we're still here, and still fighting, aren't we?”

“Damn right.”

“Onwards and upwards.” Phyllida tossed back her gin with the brio of a sailor.

“We're still the modern women, aren't we?” Maisie sought reassurance.

“We are. A force to be reckoned with. We'll just have to make Siepmann sorry he ever wanted to be part of Talks.”

“Yes. And we'll have to see what we can do about making Miss Matheson the next DG. After that I'm going to stand in the next election.”

“And I'm going to leapfrog Mr. Fielden and be director of Talks. With a regular column in the
Listener
, with my name on it.”

Several patrons frowned at the angry laughter of the two young women, who paid them no attention.

Maisie visited the Drama Department, on the pretense of asking about actors for broadcasting poems. It wasn't hard to get Beanie alone. She perked up, smelling excitement.

“You told me ages ago that Simon's family was in trouble. Have you heard anything further?”

Beanie nodded. “His father put a great deal of money into American investments. And as you know, there's been a bit of a bother over there.”

“So the earl's lost money?”

“It's possibly quite desperate.” Beanie giggled. “And it's said their cacao holdings in Trinidad are wobbly as well, but that might just be adding fat to the fire.”

“Which would make them frantic for any sort of good contract to keep the cacao flowing.”

“Begging for it, I'd think.” Beanie lit a cigarette and poked a (rather sharp) fingernail into Maisie's shoulder. “Maisie, I've been
involved in theater one way or another since I could toddle. I know the makings of a plot when I hear one.”

“Yes. I'm writing a play.”

“Most certainly you are. Do you know, it's dreadfully funny, but I warrant I could help you a great deal if you were to actually trust me with the full story.”

Maisie looked into Beanie's challenging green eyes. Not the full story, no. Especially when Phyllida knew nothing. But Beanie understood things about the waters Maisie was about to chart that even Hilda didn't.

What would Hilda do? What would an investigative journalist do? Some sources had to be trusted, surely?

“It's a bit . . . tricky,” Maisie began, faltering. “I don't really know what . . . All right, to be honest, Beanie, it's an enormous secret, and I don't know if I can trust you to keep it quiet.”

Beanie's eyes twinkled further. “Learning how to keep the right sort of secrets is the only way to survive a posh girls' boarding school, Maisie.”

Maisie leaned closer to Beanie.

“Listen carefully . . .”

N
estlé's London office was a hulking maw of a Gothic atrocity. Maisie studied her reflection in her pocket mirror, pleased to see her efforts with the stage makeup continued to mask her well. She smoothed her coat and swept inside.

“May I help you?” the receptionist, an overpolished Home Counties young man, too young for his ostentatious pince-nez, intoned in a ponderous accent.

“Good afternoon,” Maisie said in a crisp tone, articulating well enough to not be putting on a fake accent, exactly, but not be readily identifiable as her usual wherever-she-was-from self. “I have an appointment with Mr. Grigson's secretary. It's to discuss advertising.”

An authoritative voice, nondescript appearance, and meeting with a secretary rather than the man himself garnered no interest. She was waved in and given directions without ever making eye contact.

Authority faded and Invisible Girl took over, as Maisie measured purposeful steps toward her quarry. The man at reception fulfilled her expectation in thinking nothing of a secretary's schedule, and forgetting if he even knew that Grigson's secretary left early on the afternoons of the long monthly board meeting.

Maisie's careful research did not fail her. At 5:31, she was inside his office.

She went straight to work, forcing herself not to think about what it meant. About Simon. A man who had given her a ring. Who maybe loved her.

The nail file again. This lock was trickier. Or she was shaking. She fussed at it, sweat beading her neck. It was loosening. It was loosening—the nail file broke, the tip stuck inside.

No! Oh, no, no
.

But the drawer was open.

Letters. Documents. Reams of them. Something in German, with notes in English. A contract? Notes, letters. A letter to someone about Simon, indicating that a man like him, so well connected and mannered and educated, was just the right sort for building a trusted new media. Eventually, Nestlé was sure to be sponsoring content on the radio, and that would help secure more contracts as well as customers. Maisie took her eight pictures, though she hardly knew what she was looking at and hoped her hands weren't shaking too much.

Six minutes. She had to go. His diary was open on his desk, appointments in baroque handwriting. Her secretary's training made her glance at it automatically, confirming his meeting. But it wasn't open to today. It was open to next week. Drinks. With Simon. And the words: “Final contract.” Maisie had to force her hand to make the marks, writing down the time and place. She hadn't ever crashed a party in her life. It might be time to start.

She made it all the way to the office door—and bumped into Grigson hurrying in.

“Who are you? What the devil were you doing in my office?”

“Nothing, sir. It was a mistake,” she said, her head firmly down, heart pounding. He must have forgotten something, not that it mattered. She just hoped he'd forgotten her face. She attempted to slither around him.

“I'll say it was a mistake, all right. Don't you dare try to get away from me!” He grabbed her arm. A few passersby stopped and stared.

“Let go!” Maisie snarled, attempting to twist free.

“I won't until you tell me who you are.” He pulled her close with surprising strength and jerked her head back. “I know you, don't I? I've seen your face before.”

“No!” she yelled and jerked away from him and ran down the corridor.

“Stop her! Stop her!”

She could hear feet. She passed faces of people too startled to grab her. Even if they had tried, they would not have held her. No one in this building knew how to run like the girl who had grown up as Mousy Maisie.

She was down the stairs. She was past reception. She was in the street. She ran, and ran, and ran, and didn't look back. Didn't think of anything, except reaching Hilda. She made a cursory stop in a café to wash her face and generally make herself presentable and headed on to Lady Astor's salon, where Hilda, obliged to attend, had arranged for them to meet.

Maisie came in and saw that half of London was in attendance as well. The butler admitted Maisie with a resigned expression. Probably he'd hoped she was the fire brigade.

“Ah, Miss Musgrave!” Lady Astor glided through the throng to clutch Maisie's hand. “I am so desperately cross about the goings-on at the BBC. Miss Matheson is takin' it on the chin and you're holdin' up your end well, but to not even be made producer on our
Week in Westminster
when you've as good as
been
it, it's beyond appallin'. I've half a mind to tell the governors to step in, but Miss M says best not to and I expect she's right. Only she's always too nice by far, and that's a fact. What do you reckon, hm?”

Maisie wasn't sure if she was to weigh in on Hilda's niceness or whether Lady Astor should use her influence. The thought of how good Hilda was and her taking it on the chin made Maisie's throat tighten.

Someone called to Lady Astor.

“Must tend these people. Don't know where our Miss M's gotten to. Around somewhere, I expect. You go on and find her. We'll talk later.”

From the reception room that only Lady Astor, Virginian at her core, called a parlor, to the study, to the dining room, no Hilda. Maisie heard laughter from the library, but met only a single man leaving it as she entered.

“Hullo.” He nodded, friendly, because if she was here she must be important.

“Hullo.” She greeted him, for much the same reason.

Maisie lingered in the empty room—it was, after all, a library. A small, stuffy library, but still full of books. She was just perusing the shelves when she heard laughter again and noticed a narrow door in the corner. She pushed through into the billiard room.

Hilda was in there. With Vita. And they were . . .

“Oh!”

Hilda giggled into Vita's hair.

“Ha! Caught you with your hand in the biscuit tin,” Hilda teased. Vita took her time withdrawing her hand from inside Hilda's chemise and sighed as Hilda fastened her dress. “I suppose if mice will play where the kittens are. Evening, Miss Musgrave. You see Miss Sackville-West has returned to England.”

“Er, yes. Good evening,” Maisie muttered to the floor, which was inconsiderately refusing to swallow her. She had a long practice of mortification, thanks to Georgina, but this was on quite a different plane. She had never seen two women kiss before, and though it was no different from seeing anyone else kiss, well, a person never wanted to walk in on other people kissing. Especially one's boss. Maisie tried to leave the room, but her feet had forgotten how to move.

The women were irritatingly unembarrassed and made no attempt to shift away from each other once Hilda was dressed. Vita stood over her and Hilda stayed sitting on the billiard table, legs swinging idly. “Don't look so horrified, Miss Musgrave. I rather assumed you knew,” she said.

Did Hilda assume Maisie was so much like her now that she knew everything?

“How did you get on?” Hilda wanted to know.

Maisie glanced at Vita but realized Hilda wouldn't ask if it wasn't all right for Vita to know.

“I, er, well, I found an awful lot, and took snaps and notes. But there was a lot more. And . . . he caught me.”

“He WHAT?”

“I got away—well, I suppose that's obvious, but he saw my face. Though I did have makeup on, but nonetheless . . . Well, it doesn't matter, I hope. We've got to develop these photographs. And he's to have drinks with Simon next week, something about a contract. I was thinking I ought to attend?”

“Goodness,” Hilda marveled. “It was a productive journey.”

“Unfortunately,” Maisie agreed with a sigh.

“You really have a fine girl here, Stoker,” Vita pronounced, caressing Hilda's neck.

Stoker???

“You have no idea,” Hilda agreed.

Maisie agreed to have lunch with Simon to try to allay suspicions. She had explained that the season of Christmas and New Year's was a particularly busy time at the BBC and so it was harder to get away.

“Even at night, darling?”

Part of her still tingled and melted when he looked at her. That face, that body. The smile, the laugh, the brilliance. She badly wanted to sleep with him again. Again and again. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. She still hoped he had no idea what Grigson really wanted, and that the whole deal was just about the cacao, not the newspaper, but until she was sure, she couldn't be alone with him anymore.

“My family's having a massive gathering, the classic bourgeois Dickensian Christmas. I was hoping to introduce you properly,” Simon went on, spinning the fantasy of her welcome, her entrance into the great house and the ancient name.

A house that, if Beanie's information was correct, they were currently clinging to by their fingernails. Maisie might have more money
in her own bank account—her own account, in her own name; it still felt like a miracle—than the Brock-Morlands had left in their fortune.

But maybe he believed it. Maybe he believed he loved her.

I hope so. Because that would be nice. Because otherwise no man ever has.

“Care for a pudding?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

You can't think how I want to believe it's all at the behest of your father, saving the family name and fortune. And you're just being his errand boy—or are you an errant boy? But I've got to stop you. I hope you don't see what you're doing. I'll show you.

“Say you'll come to the house. The BBC can spare you a little while, can't they? It's only the most bourgeois frothy programming over the holidays, surely?”

On the other hand,
I would rather eat live entrails than hear the word “bourgeois” again . . .

“We've got such a lot of planning to do,” she said, shaking her head.

“Ah. Planning. I say, do tell your Miss Matheson that her goal for 1930 should be a bit more fair-mindedness in broadcasting, what?”

“What?”

“Well, one only need look at the listings to see there's a great deal in favor of Labour and such-like. I hear that Bolshie economist Keynes has been on a great many times.”

“And he's brilliant. But we have people who disagree with him, too.”

“And there, you see? That's the trouble with your BBC, throwing around all those opinions, confusing people.”

“No, that's not it at all. People are understanding more all the time. It's the best thing there is, Simon, and growing and changing and getting better, and I'm a part of it, and—”

He seized and kissed her. And for the length of that kiss, she was his girl again, cleaved to him and would fly with him over the whole of the world.

“I always said I loved your passion, Maisie. You're quite the rare specimen—you know that?”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course I do, darling.”

“Thank you,” she said. Meaning it. But she still didn't go home with him.